Of Hair
by Cashmeritan
Summary: What starts out as a boring rainy day turns into something epic when Tenten gets caught in the middle as Neji and Lee challenge each other to a bet - if Neji cuts his glorious long locks, then Lee will shave his beloved eyebrows! NejiTen fluff


**A/N: Hello, everyone! :D This is my first NejiTen fanfic, and so...go easy on me. XD I'm sorry if they're out of character, in fact I'd be surprised if they weren't. :/ There isn't as much Neji/Ten fluff in here as I'd like there to be, but I'll write another one that's more fluffy. :D Please review if you liked it! Or else I'll throw a bottle of soda in your general direction, so ha.**

--

It was a rainy Sunday morning when Tenten shot upright in her bed, feeling around her nightstand to smash the off button on her alarm. The alarm choked out a final blaring note before falling silent, and she heaved a gentle sigh as she sat and listened to the rhythmic drops of rain hitting her roof and windows. No wonder she hadn't woken up early - the sound of the rain falling so steadily was so calming that if she had even so much as opened an eye, she would have been lulled back to sleep almost instantaneously.

But then her stupid alarm just _had_ to go off. Tenten scowled at the device, and its unlikable bright red numbers displaying '8:30'. As much as she hated having an alarm, Kami only knew she needed it badly. Unlike most shinobi, whose internal clock was finely attuned to the point of not requiring outside reminders, Tenten had a nasty habit of sleeping too deeply for such skills. It was something she wasn't too proud of.

After a few idle minutes of watching the rain sluice down her bedroom window, she finally hoisted herself out of bed and snatched two ribbons from on top of her dresser. She began her usual morning routine - brush teeth, put hair up, and grab breakfast. She rummaged through her cupboards and refrigerator, frowning when all she found were stale or molded items. She picked up a molded loaf of bread, still in its original bagged packaging, and flung it into the waste can with a gag.

Okay, so she also had a nasty habit of letting food go bad. She managed to find a banana, just ripe enough to still be good, and hastily ate it while contemplating going shopping later that afternoon. She tossed the peel into the trash once she had finished, and grabbed a raincoat and boots from the coat closet and put them on.

She was supposed to meet Lee and Neji bright and early, (although clearly it wasn't bright) for some group sparring, but now found herself wondering what they would do instead. As fun as training in rain or shine sounded to the ever-cheerful Lee, Tenten would much rather save herself the bad experience. The last time they had trained in rainy weather wasn't a very pleasant memory.

She had been about to hurl 4 kunai at Lee, when she stepped wrong and slipped on a patch of mud, landing butt-first on the sodden and sticky ground. It had been humiliating, especially the way Neji had eyed her condescendingly with that smug smile of his. Lee, of course, couldn't contain his laughter and for days afterward would still break into hysterical giggles upon being reminded of the event.

Tenten pulled an umbrella off of the coathanger and stepped outside, flicking the release up so the umbrella would shoot open. Unfortunately, it just narrowly missed poking her eyes out and instead ensnared her bangs within its clutches. She cursed colorfully, and shut the front door so she could focus on rescuing her hair, which turned out to be less than successful. Okay, that was it. Aside from going grocery shopping for some nonperishable food items, she'd also have to go out and get a haircut to prevent this from happening again.

She grunted and yanked the hair free, rubbing her scalp tenderly. She let out a groan when she noticed a small clump of hair still attached to the umbrella, and finally set out to the training field to see if her teammates would already be there.

Along the way she watched small children leaping into puddles ecstatically and their chastising mothers, an old woman washing her silverware out in the rain, and a cat that looked identical to a drowned rat yowling as it skidded into an alleyway to avoid the rain's onslaught. The field slowly blended into view, and a flash of green alerted her to Lee's presence within it.

As she crossed the field, Lee caught sight of her and hollered a greeting, waving his arms. He eagerly ran towards her, beaming.

"Good morning, Tenten!"

"Not really," she muttered, blowing her damaged bangs out of her face.

"Aww, why not?" Lee frowned. "Don't you just love being out in a rainy morning? The serenity, the beauty, the absolute tranquility..."

"The mud, the gaping puddles, the wetness..." Tenten listed contradictingly with a pout.

Lee rolled his eyes and smiled. "I take it you aren't going to want to train in this weather, huh?"

"Nah, not today unless things clear up more." Tenten glanced skyward.

"Well, I think Neji's on his way so once he gets here we can-- OH, HI NEJI!!"

She turned around and saw him approach leisurely, a frown glued onto his face. He hadn't brought an umbrella, obvious evidence being his drenched long hair. Tenten assumed that he wasn't too keen on the rain either. Her mind drifted back to the soaked cat, and she fought to stifle a grin as she compared the two.

"What are our plans?" Neji asked flatly once he joined them.

"Dunno," replied Lee with a shrug.

"Well, I think I need a haircut..." Tenten said quietly, fingering her bangs.

Lee chuckled. "I bet Neji could use one too."

The Hyuuga shot a glare at his team-mate. "I'm quite content with the current length of my hair, thank you for asking."

Tenten eyed his hair thoughtfully. Truth be told, it was getting quite excessively long. The jet black strands cascaded far past his shoulders, the tips of his hair dangling somewhere just above where his rump began. However, she couldn't bear to imagine a short-haired Neji. For as long as she'd known him, his hair had always been long enough for one to mistake him as a female from behind. It gave him a sort of charm - she didn't know what kind, though.

"What if I challenge you to do it? Let's say, if I paid you?" Lee inquired, smirking.

Neji's eyebrows raised, his interest was obviously piqued. "A challenge, you say? Of what kind?"

Tenten wanted to slap her forehead. Leave it up to these two to make everything a contest. Was it in engraved onto every male's DNA that they were just genetically unable to refuse a challenge?

"Hmm... What about, if you cut your hair, I'll buy you lunch for a week?"

"A week?" Neji scoffed. "I've been growing my hair for years, Lee. I want more adequate compensation."

"Like what?" Lee demanded, frowning. He thought that the lunch idea was fine!

Neji paused, and reached up to stroke his chin in thought. "Hm...I can't really think of anything yet..."

"How about shaving his eyebrows?" Tenten blurted out.

Both pairs of eyes fell on her; one displaying outright shock, and the other displaying admiration and joy.

"That'd be perfect!" Neji said with a cackle.

Lee's eyes widened, and his lip quivered into a pout. "W-What? Tenten...how could you suggest such a horrible thing..."

The token female member of the team smiled nervously and rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, it would technically be fair right? I mean, Neji prizes his hair and you do seem to be quite attached to your eyebrows..."

"For good reason!" Lee sniffed. "They give me individuality, a unique sense of self! Without these babies, I'd be just another lonely 'nobody'!"

"You'd actually have a chance of getting a girlfriend," Neji added. "But either way, is it a deal or isn't it a deal?"

Lee appeared to be in deep thought. "Do you think it would make Sakura-chan notice me?..." he mused out loud.

"Um, sure?" Tenten supplied. "I mean, it'd probably be a pleasant surprise, right?"

His lips curled into a wide smirk. "Right! That's it! You're on, Neji! I'll shave my beloved eyebrows, and you'll cut your hair!"

Neji smiled, looking rather pleased with himself. "Then it's a deal. I'll go with Tenten down to one of the village barbers and we'll get our hair cut, and then once we're done we'll shave your eyebrows."

"So...I at least have a couple more hours left with them?" Lee asked hopefully.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "They'll grow back, you know!"

"Tenten," Neji said sharply, eyes full of determination. "Shall we head off?"

----

Together, they wandered the streets in search of a decent-looking barber shop, when a thought snuck into the back of Tenten's head.

'How would Neji even _look_ with shorter hair?'

She glanced sideways at her team-mate, trying to inconspicuously examine him. Hmm..depending on how short, he probably wouldn't look that bad at all. An unsightly image of a bald Neji intruded amongst her thought and made her cringe rather extensively. Yuck...

Neji turned to her, eyebrow raised. "Something the matter?"

Tenten shook her head eagerly. "No, no, nothing's wrong. Just thinking."

"Hm. So am I," he said, his face looking rather conflicted.

"About what?"

"Well..." He sighed. "It's foolish, but I've grown attached to my hair. I'm unsure if I really want to cut it or not."

"If you're not sure, then why do it? You don't have to, you know," Tenten pointed out.

"And give in to Lee and never have the experience of seeing him eyebrow-less?!" Neji cried.

He had a point. The prospect of seeing Lee without his most distinguished trait was extremely exciting. But Tenten _liked_ Neji's hair, although it would seem sort of awkward to outright say so.

"Just remember it's your choice," Tenten told him.

They approached a small, but cozy looking barber's shop, marked by the trademark striped pole outside. Neji squinted at the sign above the door.

"Hirano's Barber Shop? Hm. We might as well go here. It doesn't look quite as archaic as the others," he said.

It seemed almost pitiful the extent that Neji cared about his hair. She had never known how much he truly valued it, but his obvious pickiness about hair-cutting places was humorous. It was as if he had to fully trust the establishment to have them so much as snip his hair, it reminded her of a mother being choosy about which foods her child could intake.

They entered the small salon and a bell above the door announced their arrival to the owner, who looked up happily from his dusty counter. He acted as though he hadn't had a customer in ages.

"Mariko!" he called to a woman way in the back who was cleaning the mirrors with glass cleaner. "We have customers!"

Mariko glanced up in disbelief, and her mouth spread into a wide ecstatic grin.

Neji nudged Tenten in the shoulder. "Maybe we shouldn't have chosen this place..." he murmured to her.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "You chose, now we stay."

He gave her a pained look, but turned back to the owners, clearing his throat. "Yes, this young woman and I would like to have our hair cut."

The male owner nodded so much that Tenten worried his neck would go limp, and he stepped out to shake Neji's hand. "My name's Hirano Natsuo, at your service, sir. If you come right this way, I'll have my wife suit you up and get you done." He led the Hyuuga to the back, where there were 4 salon chairs in a row positioned facing the mirrors that Mariko was cleaning fastidiously.

Neji sat, and Mariko abandoned her cleaning supplies and practically leaped on his hair as if it were the finest thing she'd ever seen.

"It's so silky..." she murmured in wonder, running her fingers through it and lifting a thick lock to stroke her cheek against. Neji glanced at Tenten out of the corner of his eye, silently screaming 'HELP ME!'

"And you, ma'am?" Natsuo asked Tenten.

Tenten smiled. "I'd like a simple trim, if that's all right."

"Of course, right this way." He seized her arm and led her back, seating two seats down from Neji. "I'll have to ask you to remove those ribbons from your hair before we begin."

Tenten reached up and carefully undid each ribbon, dismantling her buns and letting them unravel down until her hair regained its natural flow. Natsuo looked pleased, and set to work.

Although she was a little nervous as to what this man would do to her hair, Tenten decided to focus on Neji's experience more than her own. She was deathly curious, and each time the owner's wife took a snip away, she felt her heart swell a little painfully.

She wanted to punch herself in the gut. Why did it faze her if Neji's hair was cut!? What was it to her? Sure, it looked nice - but it was just hair, right?

Neji appeared to be quite relaxed, the sheer panic had all but disappeared from his face. Locks of hair tumbled here and there, catching at the floor around Mrs. Hirano's feet.

"All done," Mr. Hirano announced finally, removing the sheet from around Tenten's neck. She closed her eye tightly, afraid to look in the mirror in case this man had actually worked her hair into a living horror itself.

One eye opened just a crack, and she turned her head carefully and peered into the mirror. What she saw surprised her.

"Do you like it?" he asked, brushing the sheet off over the floor.

Her hair looked almost exactly the same, save for a slight shortening in length - exactly what she had asked for. She breathed a sigh of relief and odded. "It's great! How much do I owe you?"

"250 ryo, please."

Tenten wandered over to the counter with the register on it to pay, glancing warily in Neji's direction. He looked so unthinkably different now with almost all of his hair missing. By now, his hair was falling only to shoulder length, and her heart continued to tug the shorter it got. Mr. Hirano gave her her change, and she took a seat in the small waiting area for his wife to finish with Neji.

It took about 15 more minutes for everything to be done, but at last she heard the familiar clearing of a throat that couldn't have come from anyone other than Neji. He was standing 3 feet away, waiting for her to notice.

She hesitantly looked up, and her eyes widened.

All that was left of his once waist length hair was a sort of shaggy cut, similar to Sasuke's in the front, but without the duck-butt sort of effect in the back. It looked...unusually nice. It took 30 seconds for Tenten to realize that she had been staring, and she quickly looked away, feeling her cheeks grow hot.

"Does it look all right?" Neji asked, reaching up to touch the black strands self-consciously.

"I-It looks great!" Tenten answered, trying to force her lips to smile without twitching. He looked so damn good!

"Well, then," he said with a sigh and ran his fingers through his cropped locks. "Let's go make sure Lee upholds his end of the bargain."

--

The two of them strolled back to towards Lee's residence, and Neji seemed unable to stop touching his newly cut hair. Tenten was pleased that her bangs were no longer in potential danger if she were to open her umbrella again, and best of all the rain had halted to a drizzle, so no such accessory was even required. As they walked, she worked to tie her hair up into two makeshift buns, her thoughts wondering to the curiosity that would be an eyebrowless Lee.

They stepped up to his front steps, and Neji did the honors of knocking on the front door. They both stood there awkwardly, and Tenten noticed Neji's continued infatuation with touching his hair. A very tiny smile graced his lips.

"So...do you really think it looks good?" he asked, his white eyes flicking over to her.

Dammit, here it was again. That same heat shot to her cheeks, as if she were experiencing a 30 second fever, and she gave a smile and a nod. "Yeah... It really suits you afterall."

His confidence seemed to boost, for his smile became broader and more proud. "Thank you, Tenten."

Ugh, what the hell was this going with her? The random blushing, the fluttering in her heart when he said 'thank you'... Tenten bit the inside of her cheek. No, she'd have to analyze those feelings later.

Lee opened the door, his eyes red presumably from crying. "Y-Yes...? O-Oh my gosh!" He clapped his hand over his mouth when he saw them.

"Do you like it?" Neji asked, flipping his hair with a smirk.

"I love it!" Lee cried as he ran over to Tenten. "Oh wow, your bangs look awesome!"

Neji scowled. "What about me, you dimwit?!"

Lee glanced over at Neji and blinked. "Oh. Cool. Your hair, it's shorter."

Neji sniffed in disdain and rolled his eyes. "So, time to make you uphold your promise."

"D-Do I really have to?" Lee asked, eyes large and shining with unshed tears.

"Of course you do!" Neji barked. "You made me cut my hair!"

"Fine...fine... Well, then I guess you two should come inside." All emotion left Lee's voice, and he turned around and headed back inside, a cue for Tenten and Neji to follow.

Lee strode into the bathroom, and handed Neji a large electrical razor. "You do the honors," he said, choking up. He paused, then glanced at Tenten. "Actually, I'd rather have _Tenten_ do the honors."

Neji scoffed and handed the tool to Tenten, who looked down at it without knowing anything about how it worked. Ah, the instrument of judgement.

She plugged in the attached cord into a nearby socket, and flipped the on switch on the device, watching it spring to life as it made some unnerving noises. She glanced up at Lee, eyebrows raised.

"You sure you want this?" she asked.

"He has no choice!" Neji snapped. "Here, let me do it." He snatched the razor, and handed Tenten the can of shaving cream.

"Do we use this when shaving eyebrows?" Tenten asked.

"I'm not sure, I wouldn't know. Let's just use it anyway."

Lee gulped, eyes wide. His lips were mouthing something quickly, which Tenten knew to be a prayer.

Neji poised the razor over Lee's skull as Tenten lathered some shaving cream over their leotard-sporting friend.

"Okay," Tenten said, taking a step back. "That should be enough..."

Lee whimpered. "It's gonna get in my eyes!"

"Then close them!" Neji growled. He then took a deep breath, and began the deed.

Needless to say, it was messy. Tenten had imagined the hair just falling down and disappearing, but no. It got stuck in the shaving cream, smeared everywhere, and generally turned into a bitch of a mess.

Neji sighed in annoyance, and continued his work, revealing the pale, never exposed flesh of the skin beneath Lee's eyebrows. Once he finished, he flicked the razor off, and exchanged looks with Tenten.

Lee moaned, "Is it all over?"

"Yes," Tenten said with a smile. She seized a hand towel and ran it under the sink water for a moment, and then began to rub the hairy mess from Lee's brow. As she did, the shiny eyebrowless skin came into view. She got as much as she could off of him, and set the towel aside, examining their work.

"How does it look?..." Lee asked nervously.

Neji bit back a laugh. "It looks...beautiful, Lee. Would you like to see?"

"I guess so..." he murmured. He stood up, legs shaking and wobbling, and slowly turned to face his reflection in the mirror. His eyes shot wide open.

Tenten snatched Neji's arm and bit her lip. Would he have a mental breakdown!?

"...This...looks...." Lee began in a deadpan. Tenten winced.

"....AWESOME!" He finished with a shout.

Neji choked. "W-What?!"

"What??" Tenten squeaked.

"I love it!" Lee cried, turning to face them, beaming. "I love it! I love you guys! Thank you so much!" He shot over and wrapped his arms around them, giving them a bear hug.

"Wait...Really?" Neji asked.

"Yes! Why wouldn't I? The sheen of my shaven brow; surely it is a work of art!" He puffed out his chest. "You two are such good friends. I'm sorry I ever doubted your judgment." He walked out towards the front door.

"I'm going to go show Gai-sensei my new look!" he said excitedly. Tenten and Neji wandered out after him, still in shock. They exited the house and Lee shut the door behind them, running up the block while waving his arms ecstatically. All Neji and Tenten could do was simply watch, in awe.

"Well, that was unexpected," Tenten breathed.

"I guess part of me is glad that he liked it.." Neji muttered. "The experience itself was just worthwhile."

They both stood there silently for a few moments. Tenten dug at the earth with her feet, shyly watching Neji's defined profile. She smiled a tiny smile to herself.

"Tenten?"

"Y-Yeah?" Tenten asked clumsily, having been ripped out of her little reverie.

"Does it really look good? I mean...do I look attractive?" Neji asked her, his brow furrowed.

"Well, you know, uhm...I can't really judge _that_ but... it does look good. I've told you many times," Tenten replied, eyes shifting. Ugh, old familiar heat rising to her cheeks, go AWAY!

"Oh, I see."

"Hm?"

Neji turned to her, smiling. "As long as you like it, Tenten, then that's all that matters to me."

"..!?" Tenten struggled not to gape, and forced herself to nod and put a messy smile on her face.

"Ah..uhm...Tenten." Neji gestured to her hair.

"W-What? What's in my hair?!" Tenten demanded, immediately flailing around in an attempt to feel the foreign article.

"Nothing. Just some shaving cream." Neji stepped closer and wiped it out of her hair with his sleeve. He smiled down at her.

Okay, now she couldn't help but blush.

"Tenten, I..." Neji began, leaning down closer towards her. She could just feel his breath dancing over her face, and at this proximity everything felt just so amazing and--

"HEY GUYS! GUESS WHAT GAI-SENSEI SAID ABOUT MY---!!" Lee came running over shouting. He skidded to a halt and fell mute when he saw the awkward state his team mates had taken on.

Neji jumped and stepped back, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh, Lee. Yes. We need to spar, now. It isn't raining anymore, afterall."

"Yeah!" Lee cried. "After this makeover of mine, I feel completely revitalized! I will take you on, Neji!"

Tenten blinked in shock as she watched her two team mates walk away. She stood there, mouth agape and eyes wide open. What had just happened? Or rather, what had almost just happened?

Neji turned around mid step and winked at her.

Ohhh, boy. There it went again - that pesky blush.

**END.**


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